2. Last
month
Gravity
Thinking
were
invited
as
part
of
a
UKTI
mission
to
a:end
SXSW
Interac?ve
the
annual
geek
pilgrimage
to
Aus?n
Texas
where
words
like
“ecosystem”,
“transmedia”,
“Hack?vism”
and
cura?on”
are
used
unashamedly
in
every
bar,
demo,
presenta?on
and
panel
–
this
is
our
take
on
the
madness
of
Aus?n
INTRODUCTION
From originally being a film and music festival
SXSW Interactive has outgrown both with over
25k attendees this year – it seems the geeks
are the new rock and film stars.
For us no one overriding technology or
platform broke through but rather a
patchwork of ideas, messages and concepts
that we have ‘curated’ into 7 themes that
we thought everyone should consider in
2012 and beyond (or at least until SXSW
2013)
The event attracts an enticing mix of people
from strategists to scientists, philosophers to
VC, music legends to Vice Presidents and
journalists to developers, SXSW is certainly a
veritable smorgasbord of religions.
It is this melting pot that what brings all the
digerati to Austin’s yard - it the biggest
festival of its kind in the World and THE place
to launch a new platform, trend or immersive
technology – just ask Twitter and Foursquare .
The variety and vastness hit me after only an
hour, I felt about SXSW the same way that a
consumer probably feels about social media -
cool, hectic, unsettling, inspiring, scary,
social ……all at once !
SOCIAL SERENDIPITY
One of the biggest pre-event hot
topics was ‘SoLoMo’ (Social Local
Mobile), in essence Minority
Report for your mobile.
As Amber Case, a social anthropologist who
was launching GeoLoqi at Austin, pointed
out in her keynote - everyone’s technology
has become extension of them, and
whether they realize it or not, they are in
a symbiotic relationship with their devices.
Her assertion that "the best technology is
invisible and just gets out of your way to
let you live your life.” was spot on and
something that every developer of new
apps and brands considering social
campaigns needs to consider carefully.
This development of frictionless sharing of
data has been gleaned from a mix of app
usage, local search results, social streams
and location integrated with mobile and
has given rise to apps such as Highlight,
Glancee, Banjo, Sonar and Uberlife all of
which were in attendance in Austin.
3. SOCIAL FOR GOOD
Interestingly I tried these and ended up
‘finding’ and meeting up with 5 different
contacts from London I hadn’t seen for a year
or so – so I guess it works albeit in a confined
highly relevant location – success has been
less prolific since being back in London unless
you count the other 8.7m who also ‘like’
Nike !
One panel did focus on one of the most
important barriers to development of this
trend – raising the thorny issue of privacy.
‘SoLoMo Redefined: Next Gen Social Local
Mobile’ argued that with data libertarianism
at the heart of these apps there is a clear
joint responsibility between users and
companies to ensure full disclosure and
complete understanding - after all do you
really want everyone to know where you are
and what you are up to all the time ?
One app in particular, Highlight, was probably
the most discussed due to its ability to match
anyone to yourself using their social profile –
on the face of it this is great but the reality is
that if you like fairly mainstream FB pages
then everyone is your match!
Social media and emergent
technologies have given us new
forms of power as citizens,
consumers, and cultural creators
and a big part of SXSW was focused
on how this can be amplified and
developed for a greater social
benefit – indeed there was even a
whole subject area devoted to
“Better Tomorrow”
The social sharing element of the web has
presented huge opportunities for
organisations and brands to develop new
business models built around a strategic
Specific reference was given to the
opportunities for using tech and social to
do good within sectors such as healthcare,
education and finance
The key take out seemed to be
sustainability and transparency –
sustainable in terms of long term
commercial viability and transparent in
terms of commitment and it being rooted
in the strategic direction of the
organisation – something that Al Gore and
Sean Parker discussed at length (more on
this later).
purpose focused on doing good and
ensuring that it is inextricably linked to
their corporate strategy. Across the
various talks at the festival Unilever, IBM,
Nike and Google were referenced for
creating win – win economic value for the
company and society – as one session
named it - ‘Don’t just sell things. Change
the World’
4. BIG ‘SEXY’ DATA
It’s official! the nerd in the
corner that was previously
overlooked and under
appreciated is now everyone’s
new best friend – after years of
being ignored ‘Big data’ is now
‘sexy’
Given the creative nature of the festival
this data ‘love in’ appears to be counter
intuitive however as data is at the core of
social – from checking in, to status
updates to running routes to social
commerce and web searches - it is
understandable and hugely encouraging
how many ‘Big data’ sessions there were
over the 5 days.
The sessions addressed the subject of ‘big
data’ from a number of different angles -
from the importance of data in the
development of the cutting edge social
solutions based on matching data such as
Highlight and Glancee, to the ambitions of
big companies such as Pepsico to capture
as much data as possible about their
consumers to develop a single customer
view and relevant Social CRM. No sound
conclusions were drawn except that data
will continue to be at the centre of social
debates for a while yet
However there was one big watch out that
was discussed repeatedly, namely that
consumers are struggling to manage a
multitude of online profiles from Facebook
and Twitter to Foursquare and LinkedIn, let
alone the rapid proliferation of apps as
evidenced by the plethora of new offerings
at this year’s SXSW - ’Push Fatigue’ may
soon be the next diagnosable condition.
Dave Morin of Path focused on this wider
view in the session entitled "why
happiness is the new currency” which
showed how beneficial it is for brands to
tap into general positivity via the most
‘warm’ channel – mobile.
LIFE LESSONS
Amongst all the chat about new
developments in social it was
good to also see a focus away
from what Hugh Forrest, the
Event Director, called "start-up
mania" to more personally
focused parts of the event and an
emphasis on self development
and fulfillment.
5. BEFRIENDING GEEKS
SXWW even found a app for that in Happstr,
developed during a mobile hackathon called
the ‘The Start Up Bus’ en route to SXSW
where users mark the place where they are
happy.
The concept of achieving happiness
overflowed into the business World in a
fascinating talk from Reid Hoffman (founder
of Paypal, Linked In and a prominent
Facebook, Zynga and he is still 44!) who
encouraged us to adopt a beta mindset and
follow his 3 pieces of advice – Plan to adapt
(using an A,B,Z plan), Strengthen your
network and Take Intelligent risks. Most
importantly perhaps his biggest piece of
advice was ‘Learn to fail, learn from it and
move on quickly…and enjoy the journey’
This view was echoed by Biz Stone, one of the
founders of Twitter, who used his keynote to
reflect on his experience over the course of
his entrepreneurial career and in particular
the need to fully commit to any startup
rather than taking on consulting jobs in order
to pay their way, as he put it "To succeed
spectacularly you need to be ready to fail
spectacularly”
Nike took a huge presence at the show with
giant screens and an athletic park but more
interestingly ran a hackathon opening up
the API of their new Fuelband to third-
party developers giving them the
opportunity of infusing the features of
NikeFuel into their respective apps or
platforms – we await the results with great
anticipation.
It was also interesting to see a Google and
Lego sponsored a Hackathon at the Google
Developers House which challenged
developers to build a Lego Mindstorm robot
to navigate an obstacle course that was
built during the hackathon so the
contestants had to design toward a moving
target.
Perhaps the most audacious play at
befriending geeks was the free Jay Z
concert we attended on Sunday night
highlighting Amex’s new Twitter based
discount service – minimally branded but
perfectly judged it drew the most tweets
and discussions of the whole 5 days.
The aforementioned melting pot of
attendees at SXSW was best
characterised by the different types
of brand activity at SXSW- from
hackathons, sponsored concerts,
pop up restaurants and free rides to
phone charging stations and bike
rentals, brands spent the whole
festival trying to get a piece of the
action and attention.
The brands that succeeded were those that
integrated themselves and embraced the
spirit of SXSW -
6. POWER OF INFLUENCE
Sessions such as “Influencers will
inherit the Earth. Quick market
them” showed the growing
importance of online influence and
the power of amplification which
became a consistent theme of the
festival however a lot of the
conversation focused on influence
versus popularity.
One man – Gary Vaynerchuk showed us the
power of both influence and popularity when
he announced a ‘secret wine party’ at
midnight on Saturday resulting in a queue of
over 500 within 10 minutes !
A lot of the debate centred around the
quantitative way that companies such as
Klout and PeerIndex measure influence and
that this does not take into account context
and passion but as Joe Fernandez of Klout
pointed out they are trying to understand
people’s influence at a topic level and
reduce the measurement of ‘chit chat’.
So the lesson here is in essence - Don’t count
the people you reach focus on reaching the
people who count.
With over 70% of today’s core TV
audience going online whilst they
are watching, and a large
number using 3 screens, the
blurring of the internet and real
World is encroaching upon us all
making ‘Social viewing’ an
increasingly important
consideration for every
advertiser.
SOCIAL BROADCAST
Broadcasters were in Austin in force – from
CNN’s and Fast Company’s Grill to Turner
Broadcasting’s overall sponsorship and
BBC’s keynote session it seems that Social
TV is here to stay. Indeed some argued
that times are changing and the social tail
is now going to wag the broadcast dog
with social leading the way in
programming and advertising
development.
The focus for this development was not
only on the platforms and technology
fueling this, but also the fact that this
necessitated a transmedia approach to
storytelling whether that be for a scripted
drama, a reality TV series or even live
Sports coverage.
This is an area that we think will only go in
one direction as the need for content
develops and the demand for disruption and
engagement becomes more and more tricky.
7. CONTACT
It seems TV is not something that you watch
anymore it is a experience you live– as Nisha
Chittal, social media manager at the Travel
Channel put it: “Social
media for TV has gone far beyond a ‘like’ on
Facebook or follow on Twitter — it’s about
empowering viewers to participate in
programs they love in an organic and
authentic way”
SO WHAT DOES ALL
THIS MEAN ?
Gravity Thinking Limited, 185 Park Street,
London SE1 9DY
T 0207 654 7693
E info@gravitythinking.com
W gravitythinking.com
If you would like to get in touch
to discuss any of the themes of
this article or how you can
achieve World Class social media
for your company or brand then
please contact;
Andrew Roberts, Managing Partner
E andrew@gravitythinking.com
T 020 7654 7693
M 07775 612 853
Alternatively if you would like to
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you can;
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See gravitythinking.com
I think Jeremiah Owyang best
summed up the event as “A petri
dish of social and interactive
behaviours, a bellwether of what
could be a trend for the year. It also
has.…overhype, fanboyism and an
overinflated view of behaviors” so
whilst nothing swept the show, the
sheer number of tools, ideas and
trends showed that the Geeks are
certainly taking over the World and
brands can do a lot worse than
listen, learn and follow !
